My name is Jon Krakauer tenshi. The white messiah. That's my color fixer title. In the city. Fixer's are essentially mercenaries. Who are ranked by their grades. Rank 9 being the lowest. But the highest being grade 1. But then there's the ones who go above and beyond that. Ever through their skill or tech. These legendary fixers are given a title of a color like purple tear, blue reverberation and…red mist…kali….dammit thinking about her hurts. Thinking about anyone from that disaster hurts.
I still remember it. I was invited by carmen to be a part of the "seed of light" project. I was someone with bizarre abilities. When i turned 16. A mark appeared on my right cheek going down my arm. My dad explained to me that he wasn't human. He was a being called an armageddon knight. And that i was a being even more dangerous than that. Do you know the story about the fruit of knowledge? You hear stories about how demons prey on humans. Well this is the true reason. Those demons were once gods. But they were turned to demons when their knowledge was stripped from them by the one who got the throne. Their knowledge finding their way into human souls through the fruit eaten by adam and eve. Many people believed that demons were just evil. And some of them are truly are. But most of them wanted to find the human with their knowledge and return to their true form…as a nahobino.
For armageddon knights. Who stand between heaven and hell. The twilight between light and dark. It's a bit different for them. They were born that way. Therefore no knowledge for them to get back. How it works for them is…mating with a human. A nahobino is born when an armageddon knight mates with a human. The power of an armageddon knight combines with the knowledge contained within the human soul fuse together in the womb. Thus creating a nahobino. Which is why the tyrant bokun made it so that having a child with a human was banned. Any nahobino that was found would be taken to a prison. Any humans that was found in the sanctuary would be executed. My dad had a dimension stone. So he used it and ended up here…not sure if here is much of an improvement though.
The city is hell in a different way. If you live in the back streets. People will want nothing to do with you at best. Take your organs or use you for their next cannibal dish at worst. Those with enough money can move to the nest. It's much safer though at the price of becoming another ass being owned by the corps. Which had all the power to do whatever the hell they wanted.
Honestly being a nahobino was a god send. It would keep me alive in this hellhole i'm forced to call home. I knew it would only be a matter of time before i was put among the color fixers. Though it wouldn't happen until after the "seed of light" project. To this day i'm not sure how carmen found out about me. Whispers among the people? Maybe l corp took an interest in me? Like i said. Corps had all the power in the city. So it wouldn't surprise me if they had eyes all over the backstreets. But what i do know was what carmen was working something that gave me hope in a good long while.
Carmen was working on a project that would bring the light back to the souls of humans. To cure an incurable disease as she called it. A disease that has infected many i've seen. With the dead faces of people or the twisted smiles of psychos. Which is why I was in. if there was someway to bring some…some light to this city where angels fall and darkness reigns…then I was in.
My job was getting the main fuel for the project. Cogito. A job that had a high risk of dying or going insane….my nahobino powers made it so that i could survive. And i lived for years in the backstreet. If dealing with psychopaths or thugs every day of my life didn't break me…diving into "the river" wouldn't.
Despite having a good way to get cogito. No progress in the project has been made in three months. Even though we had a person pretty high in the social order with daniel. And the legendary fucking red mist guarding the project. We will still not getting anywhere. Though the project wasn't gaining any ground. I did become close with my colleagues. Elijah, gabriel, giovanni and michelle. At the end of the shifts i would always enjoy a cup of coffee with daniel. And i won't deny that i had a crush on kali…i was always a fan of the red mist stories. And to see her in person. I saw that despite living in the backstreets and dealing with the shit i did. She was quite beautiful that long red hair of hers was quite striking. And honestly. I liked a woman who could kick my ass. Whenever neither me or her had anything to do. Me and her would spar to kill our boredom. The score was even last i checked. Hell i even became an adopted father to two backstreet kids named enoch and lisa. So yeah. I forged a solid bond with my colleagues….which made what came next…hurt all the more.
The only way for the project to move forward was to use cogito on a human test subject. Me and carmen would be the best candidates. But we were deemed too important. The one chosen would be…enoch. I fought tooth and nail for it to me. After all. I was the one diving into the river. Risking my life and sanity for cogito. I had no doubt I would survive the experiment, But i was overruled.
Enoch…didn't make it. That was where my trust in both carmen and ayin fell apart. Lisa couldn't forgive them. And neither could i….and it went all downhill from there.
Carmen was racked with guilt after what happened to enoch. And tried to take her own life in the bathtub. But was still alive. Ayin had her brain and spinal cord removed and put it in a tube which would become known as "the bucket" a way to extract cogito with a significant decrease in risk.
Things got worse. Everyone started dying or going insane. The only ones who didn't were me kali and daniel. One night. While i was watching the security footage. And i saw what happened to elijah…she was on the ground bleeding from her eyes and mouth begging for death. Ayin…just walked away and left her to suffer. So that's what happend that drove gabriel to madness. It was there i knew…the project was a failure. And ayin has completely lost his mind. That's when i decided to end it…tomorrow i would kill ayin destroy the bucket and leave. However it seemed i wasn't the only one who noticed ayin's and insanity. Michelle did as well. And called the head. Clearly she didn't understand the head was more cruel than ayin was. She called them to shut down the project. What she didn't think would happen is that they would send an arbiter to kill us all. Even lisa wasn't spared. Kali fought the arbiter named garion. Only to die at her hands as well. Consumed by rage. I grabbed the prototype mimicry. And charged at the arbiter. She didn't see me coming as i ran kali's sword through her black heart. I hoped to at least leave with michelle. But nope…she took her own life out of guilt. I was…the only survivor…alone…I left the facility alone. But not before burying everyone. I made makeshift graves for everyone. I used kali's sword as her gravestone. She never wanted me touching it anyway. Besides, it mimicking her voice just added salt to the wounds. I went back home…soon in honor of the red mist. I would walk her path. Use my strength to protect others, in four years I became the color fixer known as the white messiah, I would continue as such…until i got that letter. It was an offer to become the manager of a branch of l corp…after carmen's failure i never wanted to do anything with that corp again…but we were hurting for cash. Surprisingly, fixer work was short at the moment. Maybe because our part of the back street was now zwei territory? being a single man office can really bite sometimes. So with a sigh I headed to my new job. I found the entrance was connected to a man hole…underground facilities is never a good thing.
I went down and headed to my new office…looks I could view the whole facility here with all these monitors. And soon someone entered the room. A woman with long gray and blue hair entered the room.
"Hello, jon, i give you a warm welcome to lobotomy corporation. I am angela. Your advisor and secretary. My role as an AI is to assist you in adjusting to your new workplace. So please have no worry in speaking with me or asking any questions." angela said.
"Thanks angela…i do have a question. Who was it that recommended me for this?" i asked.
"I'm afraid i can't answer that." angel replied…figures. If it turns out the person who recommended me was HIM! I'm gonna be pissed. Not only would that bastard be alive. But he dragged me back into carmen's project again! After everything that happened the last time. I don't want do it ever again…never again. I got the rundown on what i was supposed to be doing here. This place provides power to the city. But the way they get it explains the whole "face the fear build the future" motto. We get energy from abnormalities. Abominations born from the human mind. Fear's and other negative emotions most likely. Still i'm not liking the idea of putting employees in the same as those creatures. But…I need a paycheck. So all i can really do is try to make sure no one dies under my watch? Is it a nearly impossible task. Probably. But that's what I'm gonna do. Another thing I had was the TT2 system. A system with the ability to rewind the day or the week back to the start. If i fuck up. Well it's good to know i have a rewind button on hand. I took a good luck through the system and found something that…disturbed me. I found that the thing would automatically activate if angela or the sephirah would off script. I looked through that script…it was awful. It basically forced angela to be a heartless bitch. And i know ai's experience time much slower than a human does. God knows how long she suffered for. So my first move as manager was to delete this fucking script. I'm starting to think HE'S alive and the one who called me here. This script wreaked of HIS bullshit. A prime example of why "the ends justify the means" is an awful philosophy. I was so pissed. That i didn't notice angela was looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Deleting the script is not allowed manager." angela said.
"Don't care…doing it anyway. You're gonna reprimand me for it?" i asked. Angela shook her head.
"No…as a matter of fact…thank you." angela said with a smile. "Now i believe it's time for you to meet the other ai's" angela said. She went back to her neutral face. But her voice gave off a sense of gratitude. I went to the control team floor to meet the ai running the place. I waited a bit.
"Manager! Manager!" i heard someone yelling as they ran towards me. I saw a metal box with tiny arms and legs with malkuth written on it. Running towards me. It fell over and soon got back up. "I arrived just on time right? The time is…only one minute late. That's still on time right?" the bot asked. I was stunned. That voice…that clumsy cheerful and adorable attitude…it can't be.
"E-e-elijah?" i asked.
"Elijah…who is that? I am malkuth…anyway congratulations on joining lobotomy crop manager!" the bot said with that cheerfulness that screamed elijah…after the introduction was out of the way. I got to work. Still everything about "malkuth" was defiantly elijah. I couldn't get that off my mind. A distraction came as an employee came knocking at the door begging to be let go. Before malkuth could say anything i allowed him to leave. Even with his final paycheck.
"Thank you…white messiah" the employee said. As he exited this cursed place. I guess a color fixed would be known to even people trapped in this place. Luckily the first day was like the first day at school. The energy quota wasn't very long. And the first abnormality was pretty friendly..for a floating skull with a cross through it's head. I guess it's name is one sin and hundreds of good deeds. Today went by fairly easily. But like school the first day is always easy. And things are going to get much harder when we get more abnormalities for the control team to deal with. Though the day was over. I stormed to my office. And confronted angela.
"The one who sent me that letter…the one who called me here…it was ayin wasn't it!?" i yelled. There was no doubt in my mind after seeing malkuth. It was him! It had to be him! Angela sighed. Knowing that there's no point in pretending anymore.
"Yes…my creator ayin was the one who called you here." angela said.
"The sephirah…they're all my old colleagues from Carmen's lab…aren't they?" I asked.
"Yes…well except for one..binah the head of the extraction team…is the arbiter responsible for the outskirts lab massacre." angela said. My blood boiled even more to the point where I punched the wall. Causing it to crack.
"That bastard! It's bad enough that he denied my colleagues peace to continue a project that has proven to be a failure! But he even went so far as to bring back their murderer! As much as i wanted to see them again, i wanted to see their faces not those metal boxes where what remained of them was shoved in. but it's obvious that none of them will remember me. Malkuth didn't…" i yelled frustration and sorrow filling my heart.
"Manager…jon. The memories haven't been wiped. They've been repressed. You can force them to remember. But it will cause a meltdown. Making things harder for a bit. Are you willing to face that?" angela asked.
"Yes…i..want my friends back. And i'll gladly go through hell and back for that." i said with determination.
"Very well…as your secretary and advisor. I will aid you in this endeavor. Also…" angela said opening her eyes. Which were orange. Her face turned to anger. "That burning hatred for ayin is something we both share." angela said her voice filled with venom. Sounds like me and her have suffered because of that bastard's obsession with finishing a dead woman's research.
So I continued each day. With another and another abnormality on control team every day. The quota got longer as more abnormalities got involved. I stayed on the floor to make sure things went okay. I'm glad i did. I had to pull the happy teddy bear off my employees when it's hug started to get a bit too tight. The scorched girl became a lot more manageable when i faced her when she got out. New burning form aside. She was still a miserable and lonely little girl. So i told her i would become her friend. She never caused trouble again after that. She would be happy and produce more energy whenever i would be the one to work with her. Though angela didn't like me putting myself in danger. She couldn't argue with the results. The other two abnormalities. Were fairy festival and queen bee. The fairy festival was fairly easy to handle. Not as docile one sin. But still fairly manageable. Though i had to make sure that queen bee doesn't breach. Her ability to spawn worker bees makes her the most dangerous abnormality for the control team. I chatted with angela during each day as well. One day she asked about how my life's been. I gave her an honest answer of becoming a fixer after leaving the outskirts lab. Wracked with survivors' guilt. And a burning hatred for ayin for the way he treated my colleagues as disposable lab rats after Carmen died. Angela didn't argue. After all. We both suffered because of ayin. I lost my friends because of him. And angela. I can only imagine how long she suffered what as for ai. Time moves a lot slower and all the time loops that must have happened before i came here. Angela probably went through 10,000 years of suffering. Needless to say. We both have an axe to grind with that bastard. After that. I went down to control team and saw that malkuth was talking to two other of those metal bricks on legs. There was purple with yesod Written on that. And a brown one with hod written on it. I could tell from the purples ones voice and stern attitude that he was what remained of gabriel. And i could tell from the shyness of the brown one that it was what remained of michelle Apparently it was an argument about suppressions. Moreover about how i befriended the scorched girl. Of course yesod didn't believe it at all. Nice to see that hasn't changed. Gabriel was always someone that wouldn't believe something like that unless it happened right in front of him.
"You tell them. You befriended the scorched girl! Right manager?...manager?" malkuth asked. I was silent. Trying to handle my emotions after hearing the voices of my old friends coming out of those cursed metal boxes.
"Yeah…abnormality or not. The scorched girl at the end of the day is still a sad child…and attacking a sad child just rubs me the wrong way." i said.
"Our new manager has a big heart!" hod yelled gleefully. Malkuth giggled in agreement. Yesod rolled his eyes and went back to his area. Hod also returned to her area.
"Manager…if i may ask? Ever since i first encountered you. And you called me elijah…it's been bothering me…who is elijah?" malkuth asked. I sighed.
"She was…a colleague alongside a project. She was kind of clumsy but she worked hard and was always full of life and energy. We became friends soon…but something went wrong during an experiment. And she died a painful death bleeding out her eyes and mouth. She was begging for death. But the one in charge…just left her. That was when i decided that i was done. I couldn't work for that vile bastard any longer. So i was going to kill him and leave. But not before burying my dead friends." i said. Malkuth was eerily silent. "Malkuth?" i asked.
"It's sad not to have enough talent isn't it? If someone doesn't look back towards you, what does that mean? That they don't acknowledge you. That they don't care about what expression you might be making. That they feel no need to see how your doing. They already come to a conclusion. Have you ever clawed scraped at the floor writhing in pain? It really does sound excruciating. But in reality. The moment i lost my fingernails. I felt nothing. And just before i lost consciousness looking at the flesh of where my fingernails use to be. When i felt like i wasn't myself anymore. I began to laugh frantically. Even if it wasn't funny at all. And on the grip you catch a glimpse of someone's shadow. And their feet as they look down on you…guess whose feet those were."
"The person who didn't care…" i said with venom. I knew where this was going. She's talking about the day she died. The action that lead me to despise ayin.
"What about you manager? Have you ever felt helpless to control anything?" malkuth asked.
"Yes…i have. And that act almost made me commit a cold act of murder against that person." i said.
"Thank you manager…i feel a bit rewarded now…now allow me to reward you…with the feeling of helplessness." malkuth said coldly. As everything went dark as i heard about what ayin thought of elijah. And…that day. Where he ignored her suffering. The night i saw it and decided enough was enough. Soon my vision returned and saw that malkuth had become a tree of black mass. It took the form of a black tree each one carrying one of her papers or chunks of the metal box that was her current body. The thing i could do was meet the quota. Which was a bit harder seeing as malkuth was screwing with the employees brains making them do the work i didn't give them. So i had to make sure to keep an eye out incase the employee does the kind of work that pisses off the abnormality to the point of breeching you. After the quota was met a loud scream came from the control team room. I ran up back to the room and found malkuth on the floor. I went to help her up. But when I touched her a flash of white happened in front of my eyes. It was the day i first met elijah.
"Hello . I'm elijah. I hope we get along." elijah said adorably and full of energy. I couldn't resist the urge to head pat her which earned me a pouty face.
The next memory was that time that elijah was sad. Letting her insecurities get to her. So to cheer her up i made her a big cookie. The stars in her eyes was adorable i thought i was gonna have a stroke from the adorableness. She told me what was wrong with her. So i just gave her a headpat.
"Don't sweat it kid. We all have our problems. That part where we wish we could fix with a snap." i said. She looked at me. Tilting her head sideways.
"Even you ?" elijah asked.
"Yeah…my flaw is the fear that i won't be able to protect anyone in case something goes horribly wrong…you've all became my friends. And i don't want to lose any of you." i said. Elijah giggled.
"Thank for sharing this with me mr tenshi. And thanks for the cookie." elijah said with a smile.
"Elijah stop calling me mr tenshi…we're friends now. So call me jon." i said as i smiled back.
"Right…thank you jon." elijah said. The next memory was that same awful day from my point of view. I could see elijah begging for death on the tv screen. I could see myself walking back. Tears going down my cheeks as my hair blocked the view of my eyes. My teeth grinding together in pure rage. Blade of light extended from my hand. With one goal…to kill ayin.
"I'm done with this…carmen was a failure! And ayin is a lunatic! I'm done! I'm killing him and leaving with the rest of us before he gets the rest of us killed!" i yelled. I finally returned to the control team room of lobotomy corps. Malkuth soon stood up and looked at me.
"Jon…is that you?" malkuth asked.
"Yes. it's me." i said. The cold metal arms soon wrapped around me.
"I'm sorry…how could I forget you? You were always there when i needed someone to lean on. Now. i want to stand up straight. With my own two feet…if i could make a request could you give me head pat like you used to?" malkuth asked.
"Yeah. i can do that." i rubbed her head. I felt cold steel. But i was happy that i had my friend back. After losing her that day. To my surprise, A bright light emanated from my hand. And soon the cold steel i felt on my palm turned into a warm head. I saw malkuth smiling with her eyes closed. She soon opened and saw that she was human again. She smiled at me. Which turned into a pout. "I didn't tell you to stop." she said. Clearly getting over her form change pretty quickly. I chuckled and kept giving her headpats. Malkuth…elijah. You finally have the willingness to stand up straight…thank you sharing this with me…i promise that i won't fail you again.